Live wave height, wind and water temp — plus an 8-day forecast scored 0–100 for every sport.
Photo: Bob Jones / Wikimedia Commons · CC BY-SA 2.0
Today at Old Head Beach: Excellent for kite foiling — 81/100 for expert level. Wind 4 kn SE · Waves 0.6 m, 8 s · Tide -1.1 to 0.3 m. Best window around 06:00 UTC. Today's conditions at Old Head Beach: 0.5m waves with light cross-shore wind. E-Foiling looks Excellent in the afternoon, with Kite Foiling also worth considering. Water temperature is 14°C / 57°F.
Forecast updated · ShorSense™
Today plus the next two days are free for everyone — scored in 3-hour windows, just like the app. The full 8-day forecast lives in the 4Shor app.
Old Head Beach faces NE, so the prevailing westerly comes over the land before it reaches you. For kite foiling that usually means a gustier, less predictable flow than the raw wind speed suggests.
Today's wind is cross-shore at 4 kn. Straight cross-shore is the classic kite foiling direction: it lets you hold a line along the beach rather than fighting to get back to it.
Over the published window Old Head Beach clears 60/100 for kite foiling at every ability from Beginner to Expert — an unusually broad spot, which normally means a range of conditions rather than one narrow sweet spot. Today, 4 of 10 daylight hours clear that line at Intermediate.
Among the 31 scored spots within reach today, Old Head Beach ranks 5th for kite foiling. The order changes by discipline: the same conditions that put a spot top for one sport can drop it down the list for another.
Satellite-derived bathymetry with 10 m pixels and 10 cm vertical resolution out to ~40 m depth. The shape of the seabed is what determines where and how waves break.
Most apps run a single global model at 9–25 km. We blend regional NWP from national meteorological offices at 1.3–2 km — UK Met Office UKV, Météo-France AROME HD, ItaliaMeteo ICON-2I — with ECMWF IFS for the 8-day horizon. Finer resolution means the sea breeze, cliff funnelling and bay shadowing that changes everything for a session.
A nearshore wave model propagates the spectrum across the bathymetric mesh — modelling refraction, shoaling, dissipation, focusing and breaking as it goes. Most apps stop at swell + wind. We go further.
10 sport models × 4 ability levels weight wave height, period, wind, tide and breaking conditions differently — calibrated against ridden sessions so the scores mean what they say.
A sheltered, sandy Blue Flag beach backed by cliffs with rockpools exposed at low tide, near Croagh Patrick and the Oldhead Wood nature reserve. Its east-facing beach break suits beginner-to-intermediate surfing, windsurfing, and paddleboarding. Dogs are banned from the bathing area in summer. Lifeguards patrol daily in July-August and summer weekends. Tidal range is significant: low tide exposes rockpools, while high tide reduces usable beach and entry.
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Get the free Old Head Beach widgetToday's conditions for Old Head Beach are free. Unlock the full 8-day forecast and per-sport alerts that ping you when this location is about to fire. more than 2,500 European locations, scored from the seabed up.
Wind at Old Head Beach today: 4 kn SE (gusting 10 kn). Wind direction relative to the shore affects kite foiling conditions significantly — offshore winds produce cleaner, glassier surfaces while onshore winds add chop. These are daily averages; the 4Shor app shows hourly detail.
Waves at Old Head Beach today: 0.6 m, 8 s period from N, peeling character. 4Shor derives nearshore wave conditions from ECMWF IFS 9-km atmospheric data and the IBI regional ocean model, updated hourly.
The best window for kite foiling at Old Head Beach today is around 10:00 UTC, when conditions score 75/100 for intermediate level. Conditions can shift by the hour — the 4Shor app shows the full 24-hour score chart.
For beginners, Old Head Beach scores 77/100 today for surfing — Good. A score of 65–79 is Good for a beginner; 80+ is Excellent (90+ is Epic!); below 45 the session is usually not worth it. 4Shor scores every location across Beginner, Intermediate, Advanced and Expert levels.
Old Head Beach is scored for Surfing, Windsurfing, Kite Surfing, Kite Foiling, Wing Foiling, E-Foiling, Paddleboarding, Swimming, Kayaking, Canoeing in the 4Shor forecast system. Conditions are rated Beginner through Expert for each sport, updated every hour, so you always know whether the session is worth the drive.
Old Head Beach is a coastal location near Louisburgh in Ireland. It is one of more than 2,500 European water-sport locations scored daily by 4Shor.
4Shor's ShorSense™ system combines satellite-derived seafloor mapping, nearshore wave models, wind and tide data to generate a hyper-local forecast. At Old Head Beach, conditions are scored hourly on a 0–100 scale for each sport and ability level. A score of 80+ means Excellent (90+ Epic!); 65–79 is Good; below 45 the session is usually not worth the drive.
Questions about 4Shor itself — accuracy, pricing, the free trial — are answered on the FAQ page.
